You sit on the edge of a narrow, sagging mattress that smells of sweat and bug spray, your mind working slowly, fighting the undertow of exhaustion, losing by inches. You wonder how many people have died on the cot where you will sleep tonight.
It's not the heat, it's the humidity. That's what people always say. You had no true concept of what heat was until you came here, and now you've almost forgotten what it's like not to be slick with sweat, your face gritty and the corners of your eyes crusted with the salts left behind when perspiration evaporates from you skin. You think fondly of deodorant, hot showers, clean sheets and air conditioning. But you no longer inhabit a world where those things exist. You live in a world of war and famine, sickness and death.
You think back, your mind pausing over each syllable of each name, recalling each face. Bobby, Gant, Lucy, Mark. You think of Gamma, regal, peaceful, in her bed. You think of countless times you have uttered the words "time of death is..." You thought you knew what death was. But those deaths were clean, almost antiseptic compared to the death you see here, the wasting and the flies, the fetid smell of infected wounds and jaundiced eyes of children dead of Malaria.
What dignity is there in dying of a disease a simple course of Plaquinil could treat?
Dignity. You don't understand that word anymore. You used to toss it around like an ace in your hand. I couldn't save your husband, your wife, your child, but at least they died with dignity. But dignity only exists in the world of cell phones and CNN, not in a world where survival is the only imperative.
You know that when you return home, you will sip lattes and eat Big Macs, wondering as you do how you can sleep at night, recalling the faces of children dying of starvation.
If death were a place, it would be where you are now. It would be Africa, it would be the dirty, inadequate clinic which in the morning will fill with desperate people, and you will look at their faces and know that for every one of them you save, there will be ten that you won't.
"John."
Exhaustion and exposure to the local dialect have changed his voice. When he says your name he softens the J and drawls out the single word into a sentence. The sound makes your shoulders slump, and you run your hands over your face, then look up at him.
He stands over you, holding out a perspiring bottle of beer. The beer is safer than the local water, at least you will not catch dysentery from it. You stare up at him, unable to pull together words for a response, your hand refusing to reach up and accept the bottle.
He sits on the edge of your cot, and you think that your combined weight will collapse it. The metal groans in protest, but holds.
"You seem very far away," he says softly. "Are you thinking of Abby?"
You don't have the energy to vocalize the snort that rises in your chest. "No," You reply, and take the bottle from his hand, bring it to your mouth and take a long drink of the watery, sulfuric liquid.
He does not respond, just takes the bottle back and drinks. You sit like this for several minutes, passing the bottle back and forth, and finally you ask, "Why aren't you with Gillian?"
He looks at you intently, as if he doesn't recognize the name. It wouldn't surprise you. They aren't people to him, just faces, just bodies. A few hours of forgetfulness, bought at a price that you know he is running out of the currency to pay. It shows in his eyes, his face. He has run far and fast, has reached the proverbial brick wall and still he cannot forget.
"I was concerned about you. I thought you might need some company." He says. You shrug, thinking this is just as good an explanation as any.
It occurs to you that you have both run far and fast, carrying the albatross of loss around your necks like badges of courage, and now you both sit here, facing the same brick wall, with the past no further or farther in the past. You wonder if the reason you have tried so hard to hate him is because you are so painfully alike. To accept that Luka is human would be to accept that in yourself as well, and then what will you have left to flay yourself with?
He bumps his knee against yours, breaking your reverie.
"You think too much, Carter. Come sit with me. I like to look at the stars. It reminds me that there rest of the world is still out there, somewhere."
You don't want to be reminded that the rest of the world is still out there, but you stand anyway, follow him out to sit on top of two sawhorses and an old door that serves as a picnic table.
You look up at the stars, glowing white hot against the velvety backdrop of the night sky, and you don't understand what he finds comforting about them. They don't heal the sick, they don't put food in empty stomachs, they don't stop wars. They don't loosen the ache in your chest.
"Do you still pray, Luka?" You ask him. "What do you find to thank God for while you watch all of this happen?"
He doesn't answer you. He swigs from the bottle again, then reaches back to sit it on the table behind him. "Why did you come here, John? to make a difference, or to pay penance?"
You glare at him for a moment, unable to respond. How dare he? He has enough of his own issues to keep him on a shrink's couch until he's old and gray, what gives him the right to analyze you?
"I could ask you the same thing," You finally retort. The heat of your words seems feigned after the long pause.
He looks at you, his brow arched. "Why would you bother, when we both know the answer?" He swallows heavily, rubs the palm of his hand against his dirty pants. "Do you love her, Carter?"
You hang your head, look down at your feet, the earlier snort finally bubbling out, mixed with self-conscious laughter. The sound ends abruptly and you are left with silence more telling than any answer you could give.
"I care about her." You reply, knowing how weak it sounds. Knowing how weak it is, and that it's not enough, and never will be. Not enough for her, not enough for you, and you wonder how you reached this point in your life, where you can muster so little emotion, when once you cared so deeply about everything.
He catches your chin with his fingers and gently tilts your head to look at him. There is an odd, calm certainty in his expression. You haven't seen him look certain about anything in a very long time.
When he leans forward you know what is coming, and yet you do nothing to stop him, to stop yourself. You let his lips press against yours, hot and moist, sour with sweat and beer that tastes like untreated well water. You feel the tip of his tongue trace the seam where your lips meet, and your heart beats faster, your breath comes faster, and you close your eyes and feel as if you are falling, and nearly sob with relief that finally, finally, you feel something.
You gasp against his mouth and he takes this as an invitation, lets the tip of his tongue meet yours, gliding over it, hot and intent, alive and wanting, needing, like you, just to feel. You've never kissed a man before, never wanted to before, and you are surprised by the strength of the mouth against your own, the kiss wet and deep and demanding a reaction, and you are amazed to find your body all too willing to respond. Your pants feel tight, your breathing labored, your hand clutching his upper arm, pulling him closer.
You are no longer letting him kiss you. You are kissing him back, meeting his demands and upping the ante with your own, exploring his mouth, your hand cupping the back of his neck, your thighs pressed tightly together. His hand runs up your thigh and your squeeze your legs closed, not to keep him out, but to keep him in, because his hand and his mouth and his breath are alive, drawing responses from your body that remind you that you too are alive. It doesn't matter than he is a man, it doesn't matter that he is *this* man, because you are using him and he is using you, and that makes it all okay, doesn't it?
He releases you abruptly and slides off the table, and your heart pounds in your throat as you think that he is going to leave you, go inside and go to Gillian, kiss her with the mouth that just kissed you, make love to her with the hard-on you gave him, and you will be left out here all alone. But he smiles, almost shyly, and you see a hint of the charming Dr. Kovac that used to make nurses swoon, the man who was almost your friend.
He offers you his hand and you take it, slide down until your feet hit the ground and you realize you can no longer hide the state your body is in. Rather than cup your hand over your groin like an embarrassed teenager you look him in the eye. You are falling, and there is nothing there to catch you, and you have nothing left to lose.
You allow him to lead you to the small corrugated tin shack that houses the shower stalls. He doesn't turn on the light, just backs you against the grooved metal wall and presses his body against yours, your bodies fitting together like two pieces of a puzzle, shoulder to shoulder, chest to chest, hips to hips. It is both foreign and strangely comforting. For once you are not the biggest, the strongest. Instead you just are, and you know that you can let go of everything inside of you, all of the things making your chest hurt and keeping you awake at night, and he can take it. Grief is already his companion, and you are too selfish and don't care for him enough to spare him your own.
You kiss him hungrily, biting down on his lower lip, raking your hands over his back, and you moan when his hips rock and thrust against you, pressing his erection against your own. You are falling, drowning, and you don't care as long as you can take him with you. He is the only person not horrified by the depth of your pain, if only because his own reaches even deeper.
His hand cups your groin and rubs up and down the length of your dick, and you eagerly push against it, sparks of sensation racing up your spine, making your fingertips tingle, a hive of bees buzz in your brain, and your arch your neck as he runs his tongue along your jaw, grab his wrist and push it harder against you, needing more, needing to feel, hungry for something you never knew you craved.
The sound of your zipper opening under his fingers brings waves of reality crashing too close to your island of denial. You open your eyes to look at him, but see only layers of shadows in the darkness. You groan when his hand slips into your boxers and closes around your erection, squeezing gently.
"Why are we doing this?" you gasp, pulling his shirt free of the his pants, running your hands up the sweat-slicked expanse of his back.
"Because I need to do something. So do you. So why not this?" His voice is very close to your ear when he replies, his hot breath ghosting over your skin. He rocks intently against you and the tide of logic recedes again, replaced by the rolling of your hips as you move together.
You fumble with his zipper and push his pants past his hips, clutch his buttocks in your hands and grind against him, with him, silent save for the sound of breathing and the rustle of fabric, holding the sounds in to let the pleasure build.
And there is pleasure. Your dick rubs and clashes against his, your belly slick with sweat and precum, his teeth against your neck, his heart beating against your chest, and in some dim, distant part of your brain you think that perhaps he has had the right idea all along, fucking to keep the pain at bay.
Your reprieve is short-lived. Too soon your balls draw tight against your body, pleasure flowing hot and molten in your groin, thrusting roughly against him and you cry out softly when you come, shattering in his arms, pulsing hot and thick against his stomach.
You hear the first sob dimly and wonder why he is crying, then you realize it is your voice, they are your tears, and suddenly everything has changed. For once you are not bigger, stronger, and you have not drowned because he is holding onto you, your hot bitter tears mingling with the sweat on his neck as you sob brokenly, letting the pain out, the grief, the anger, and you know he can take it so you let him.
"Why are you doing this?" you whisper hoarsely against his neck, still rocking against him.
"Because I don't want to fall alone," he replies, and you can think of no better explanation so you kiss him again, hoping that if you stay busy catching one another, neither of you will ever hit the ground.
END
Copyright Footer', 'This site is not affiliated in any way with "ER", its writers or production company, or NBC, and makes no profit from the show. The ERROS skin is by Brihana. The script is eFiction version 3.4.2© Tammy Keefer, http://efiction.org\r\n